Two important provisions of the much vaunted accountability act haven't been implemented

Jan 01, 2008 04:30 AM

OTTAWA - When the Conservatives were elected, they promised to do business differently. No more cronyism, no more backroom deals with party hacks. They were going to clean up Ottawa.

However, critics say Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government has appointed hundreds of people with Conservative ties – the kind of cronyism the Conservatives and their predecessors used to howl about.

When the federal government was patting itself on the back last month on the anniversary of the passage of the Federal Accountability Act, it failed to mention that two key components – the appointments commission and the lobbying provisions – have not been implemented...

The Accountability act, drafted by the Tories in response to the Liberal sponsorship scandal, passed the Commons and Senate and received royal assent in December 2006, but a separate cabinet order is required for many provisions to come into force. There is nothing forcing cabinet to establish the appointments commission.

And here's the best part, Sandy, you indescribably insufferable twatwaffle:

Treasury Board President Vic Toews told the House of Commons these two components of the Accountability Act are very complicated and require time to draft. A government official said it could be another six months before the new lobbying rules come in and, as for a public appointments commission, that may never happen.

Did you catch that, Sandy? No, seriously, do you understand what just happened in that paragraph? It's not just bitter members of the Opposition here; rather, it's a member of Stephen Harper's own cabinet admitting openly that those two features of the Accountability Act still don't exist, and one of them might never exist.

So, Sandy -- and I say this with all due respect -- put a fucking sock in it. You're not publicizing a list of the CPoC's actual accomplishments, you're simply and mindlessly regurgitating dishonest, meaningless Conservative propaganda.

Here's a thought, Sandy: why don't you find a less intellectually taxing hobby, like knitting? And leave political punditry to the smart people. You are so not qualified for what you're trying to do here.

SANDY MUST BE SO PROUD: And while we're on the subject, perhaps Sandy might want to appreciate just how well that whole Federal Accountability Act is working out. Hmmmmm ... not so well, it seems:

The rules-laden Federal Accountability Act is backfiring and creating a bureaucracy of risk-averse "Dilberts" who keep their heads down, don't trust anyone and put process ahead of getting things done, warns a report by Ottawa think-tank Public Policy Forum.

The newly-released report, which draws on interviews with 50 leaders in the public and private sectors, including former prime ministers Joe Clark and Paul Martin, concludes that the Conservatives' signature legislation went so overboard with rules, regulations and parliamentary watchdogs looking over bureaucrats' shoulders that it is killing morale and stifling innovation, creativity and effective leadership.

In other words, that Act has created an entire population of cowardly, mindless public service drones. The perfect Blogging Tories, as it were. Yeah, that's something to be proud of, isn't it?

JUST FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT VALUE, let's see if a single one of Sandy's adoring worshippers points out the flaw in the FAA that I mentioned -- that two of its signature clauses have yet to be implemented. Or, more predictably, will they just fall over themselves in fawning adoration of Sandy's latest list, with no interest whatsoever in its actual accuracy?

I'm going with "fawning adoration." I'll give you odds.

BY THE WAY, just to hammer this home, it's worth pointing out how Sandy is, quite simply, lying. From this comment, we have Sandy making a bold pronouncement on the accuracy of her list (emphasis added):

There is no spin here as far as I am concerned and I know what spin looks like. Since I had to narrow down the long list into 25 “greatest hits,” I left out long term plans and strategies.

Except that, as I established above, the FAA has not been implemented as promised, yet Sandy is still listing it as an actual "accomplishment." The pathological dishonesty of that woman defies words.OHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGOD ... Responding to this comment, Sandy takes careful aim and blows off both of her feet:

Here is what the Merriam-Webster dictionary says:

the act of accomplishing–1: completion2: something that has been accomplished : achievement ...

... But, using the above definitions of accomplishments, my list is doing just fine.

And yet, as I have so indisputably pointed out, the Federal Accountability Act is most emphatically not completed.

Ignore the fact that Sandy is such an illiterate that she can't even spell "Randle Reef" correctly. And ignore the fact that her substantiating link for that claim is (predictably) just another "gc.ca" government propaganda web page, let's see how that Randle Reef thing is going, shall we? (emphasis added)

Randle Reef is an underwater deposit of 630,000 cubic metres of heavily contaminated coal tar (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) that was deposited there over a long period of time, from industrial operations that have since closed operations. In Canada, it is second only to the Sydney Tar Ponds as a site contaminated by coal tar. The eight-year clean-up is expected to begin in 2008 and be completed by 2016.

Well, how about that? An official Sandy Crux "accomplishment" that hasn't even begun yet. Ah, but that's OK -- the Harperites wrote something about it; therefore, they must be given credit for it. Thus it works in Sandy's world.

2 comments:

I just noted this one over at my place. (I really couldn't be bothered to go through the whole thing and just picked one at random):

She has the clean-up of Randle Reef in Hamilton Harbour listed as an “accomplishment” but in fact this was spearheaded by the Ontario Liberal government with funds matched three months after McGuinty had committed $30 million to the project. It hasn’t even started yet and dredging won’t begin until next year.